Sunday, February 01, 2009

I will survive!

Okay, I actually did survive. What I survived was four days and three nights with no Matt last week. He was out of town for a work trip. I have major, major anxiety leading up to his work trips and this time was certainly no different. I always pray that the trip will be cancelled (hey, every once in a great while it is!) but the biggest thing is, I never have faith in myself that it will be okay. That the girls and I will not only get through it, we'll actually have a fun time with just the three of us.

In all honesty, our time without Matt as really nice. Besides Iris's face-plant on Tuesday, we didn't have any other major mishaps. No one got sick. I don't even think there was a single time-out given while Matt was gone. The girls stepped up to the plate, as did I. We all put our best foot forward and truly had a fun few days. What really helped this time was that I pre-planned some help with the girls. One morning Eloise went to the babysitter's house while Iris was at school and one night they both went to a friend's for dinner and play time while I went out for dinner and drinks with a dear friend.

By the time Matt got home we were very, very ready for his return. Of course, what always happens upon his return happened again this time: the girls went from being sweet, amazing, children to complete, well, hellians. It's been a trying few days for us. Matt and I are both looking for extra rest time after a tiring few days but the girls require much more patience and attention than ever. Oy. When I get really good at this whole thing with Matt travelling I will plan for how to deal with this stage as well as I plan for the time he's away.

Case in point: today. We met a few families from the girl's preschool at a sledding hill for one of the children's birthday parties. It was sledding! Snow! Kids! Laughing and fun and joy! But not for Iris. She screamed and hit and called names and was just generally a really, really rotten kid to be around. It was such a bummer to have her acting this way during what should have been a really fun time. We didn't know what was up with her. Matt thought it might have been something about getting along with one of the other kids there, but you know, even if it was, why the monster explosion in being so hideous? I don't know. I didn't have the energy to deal with it. I just wanted her attitude to go away. I really wish I was better at dealing with this kind of stuff.

Despite Iris's terrible attitude, we did have fun and got tons of great photos. Click on the one below to see more from our day!

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Running my first 50k

Thank you for stopping by! I have been writing this blog for nine years (crazy!). It began as a way to document my life raising my daughter-- yep, when the blog started I only had one! Now that I have two daughters pushing their pre-teens I have shifted the focus of my blog to my passion for running and fitness. Mostly this blog serves as an online journal, so on any given day I might write a post about any different topic that interests me, such as parenting, writing, reading, health and fitness, home schooling and public schooling, being a stay-at-home mom and wife, travelling and pretty much everything else!